The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 92, July 1988 - April, 1989 Page: 20
682 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
a lawyer or doctor? Years later, Webb would observe wryly, "He lived
until I had a reputation as a scholar, but he never took any pride in
what I had accomplished-he thought that only lawyers were special.
The most litigious-minded man I ever knew."
Only two possibilities occurred to young Webb. He could become a
mail clerk for the Texas and Pacific Railway, which ran south of his fa-
ther's farm from Fort Worth to Abilene and beyond; or he could teach
school, as his father did, and at least escape the farm for several months
a year. Since he knew no one who worked for the T&P, a teaching ca-
reer won out. But first he had to overcome his deficiency in what is
loosely called formal education.
On a trip into Ranger, then a station for Texas Rangers with a popu-
lation of maybe five hundred, he pulled his horse up outside the build-
ing housing the local weekly newspaper. Shy till his death, he nonethe-
less forced himself to enter the newspaper office, where he spied the
editor, green eyeshade, long sleeves pushed short by garters, hunched
over an old Oliver typewriter with a cache of printers' proofs in his
hands. The boy stared at the editor, the first he had ever seen. Through
instinct, he suddenly realized that this man represented what he wanted
to be. A man like him didn't get sore fingers by the end of a cotton fur-
row. The staring boy made the editor feel uneasy.
"What d'ya want, boy?"
Webb, thinking fast, pointed at a pile of exchanges slopping over on
another table and replied, "Can I look at some of those?" The editor
nodded his head. The boy picked up an armful and resumed staring at
his new hero. The editor, annoyed, said gruffly to the boy: "Well, do
you want them or not! If you do, take them and get the hell out of here!"
Webb climbed on his horse, huddling his precious cargo. The dirt
road back to the farm-a good fifteen miles-was being sprinkled by a
cold rain, but the boy hardly noticed, reading as his horse walked
slowly home. A reader since he had learned how, he had been handi-
capped by a paucity of reading material. Everything that came to the
farm was read three to four times at least, or in Webb's words, "till it
wore out." The editor's gift was akin to winning a lottery of literature.
After supper the family finished its chores, and Walter resumed his
reading. Several times his mother told him to go to bed, but he kept
reading by the coal-oil lamp. Finally his mother, a traditional, pious,
eternally working frontier mother, turned strict. He went over to her
and showed her an advertisement in The Sunny South, a magazine pub-
lished in Atlanta that featured some of the better southern writers. Joel
Chandler Harris of the Uncle Remus stories is one author who comes
to mind. The magazine was featuring a subscription drive-three
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 92, July 1988 - April, 1989, periodical, 1989; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101212/m1/47/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.